" The deacon's hand in a plush cuff accepted a three-rouble note unobtrusively, and the deacon said he would put it down in the register, and his new boots creaking jauntily over the flagstones of the empty church, he went to the altar.

A moment later he peeped out thence and beckoned to Levin.

Thought, till then locked up, began to stir in Levin's head, but he made haste to drive it away.

" It will come right somehow," he thought, and went towards the altar-rails.